He inclined his head toward the cabin wall, expecting to catch the voice of the younger man from the bench under the tree and Nell’s answer to his words. But he heard only Nell singing of that other mountain girl who went sleighing to a dance in defiance of parental authority and was punished for her disobedience by being frozen to death in the sleigh.
Had Browning looked behind him, his thoughts would have been given another turn, for he was never in more peril in his life than at that moment.
The man on the bench, chancing to glance around the corner of the cabin toward the increasing light, had seen Bruce clearly outlined against the moon’s silver rim. His instant thought was that Bruce was the man against whom he and Bob Thornton had been warned—that here was the officer of the revenue service, with head pressed close to the cabin wall, having already spotted Bob Thornton as a moonshiner and tracked him to his home.
The man was a muscular giant of a fellow, as big and as strong in every way as Bruce. He was smoking and nursing a heavy stick, almost a club, which he habitually carried as a cane, but which, in his hands, was a weapon to fell an ox.
He quickly and stealthily slipped out of his shoes, then stole with catlike steps around the building, and approached Browning from the rear.
Step by step he moved forward, as silent as a shadow and as merciless as a red Indian. His face, revealed by the faint moonlight, was distorted with rage and hate, and his grip on the deadly club was so tense that the muscles on his right arm stood out in a knotted mass under the sleeve of his thin, cotton shirt.
Bruce still stood, with head inclined toward the cabin wall, listening for the words he was not to hear, wholly unaware of his peril.
Lifting himself slowly erect, the man poised the club for a brief instant, then brought it down with an inarticulate cry.
That cry saved Bruce’s life, but it did not ward off the terrible blow. Bruce straightened his head and tried to leap back, instinctively throwing up an arm as a shield.
But the club descended, beating down the arm and striking the head a glancing blow, under which Bruce sank down with a hollow groan.